Perhaps this Bible study leader didn’t exactly explain it in the best way. ZDHayden’s explanation is a good one. Jesus is called the Word in the New Testament and the Bible is the written Word of God. However, that does not mean that Jesus=the Bible. What it means is that everything in the Bible points to Jesus. It is all about him.
“Daily bread” refers to the Eucharist. A Presbyterian wouldn’t know that. I would never go to a Protestant Bible study.
When I was a Protestant it was more about how God would fulfill our daily needs. It wasn’t until after I was Catholic that I realized it was the Eucharist. In fact even some cradle Catholics don’t equate daily bread with the Eucharist.
I do, however, think that there is a sense on which the Word of God in Sacred Scripture can nourish us as well and be a type of “daily bread”… that’s why the Liturgy of the Word is an important part of the Mass. We are nourished by it as well as the Body and Blood of our Lord.G.K. Chesterton once said that one the Church is removed from Christianity, the Bible becomes an Idol to be worshiped. This certainly sounds like the situation. This Pastor seems to be equating the Bible to God. I guess those hundreds of years of illiterate Christians were not receiving their daily bread. I guess even the literate Christians that could not afford one of those expensive pre-printing press bibles were not receiving their daily bread.
Lutheranism is no older than 1517, and the American synods considerably younger than that. The NT may be parsed anyway one wishes. But the early Christian writers – those who were closer to the teachings of the Apostles and believed as the early Christians believed – understood “give us this day our daily bread” as a Eucharistic petition.
I can see a little better after reading the explanations here, especially these. I feel it enhances my relationship with Jesus to read Sacred Scripture, but I am almost completely zeroed in on the Gospels. I understand they have a different view of Scripture than I do, so I am struggling to understand exactly what that is. I guess for further clarification I have 2 more questions:I was Presbyterian until recently, and this would have seemed completely normal to me. From that perspective/theology, our relationship with Jesus gives us strength each day. We strengthen our relationship with Him through prayer and reading Scripture. Reading Scripture therefore nourishes us, just as bread would.
Now, I understand that Jesus as our daily bread is most fully expressed in the Eucharist
I hope this doesn’t seem like I’m discounting the importance of the Eucharist, because I get so excited just thinking about it… It’s the greatest gift ever, and I can never be grateful enough for it. It’s so good to be Catholic
The Mass is composed of two parts, the liturgy of the Word and the liturgy of the Eucharist. We are fed by both the Word and the Eucharist. While this is true, they are not exactly the same thing and if this woman omitted speaking of the Eucharist then I think she was using one truth to deny another by claiming that our daily Bread is found only in the Word and, while not saying it, denying that Christ is present in the Eucharist. Now, being a Presbyterian leader, she was speaking the truth as the body and blood of the Lord is not truly present in their form of communion, but is certainly there in a spiritual sense depending upon the disposition of those receiving.
Hmm. I don’t read Greek so can only report what I have read, but that would indicate that the word is pretty readily dissected into component parts “epi” super (above) and “ousious” (substantial or natural - ousious is the same word which is in the creed when we say Jesus is “one in being with the Father”). To the Jewish listener this would have certainly recalled the “supernatural” bread that sustained them in the desert - manna. And that in turn points to the Bread of Life discourse in John 6, where the crowds start out pushing Jesus about the manna and He turns the conversation to “my flesh is bread indeed.”
I cannot comment on what any individual in any church might think, but I can tell you that even in the Catholic Church we are instructed to read the Bible from four different viewpoints in order to fully grasp the meaning, one of those being from the moral sense, or how this reading applies to our daily lives. So the Scriptures should instruct all of us in our personal matters.
It is certainly the way Protestants believe they hear the word of God. As a Pentecostal I can tell you that I receive Christ in many spiritual or sacramental senses. The Bible is one way God speaks to me, and it is the final authority by which I judge any of those other spiritual or sacramental ways
Some might believe this. Pentecostals believe that the Bible has to be read in the historical context in which it was written to be understood, BUT we also believe that the Spirit can speak to us for today. This can happen when reading Scripture, when the Spirit illuminates a passage in a particular light that one has never noticed or comprehended before. But I would not suggest anyone go looking through the Bible for specific instructions for daily affairs. It doesn’t work like that, unless you are considering having an affair. Then the passages condemning adultery would be a good place to start.
From a Presbyterian point of view (at least, the PCUSA point of view… not to be confused with the more conservative PCA or OPC), the answer to your first question would be that in a way one does receive Christ spiritually by reading the Bible in that one learns more about Him and the history of His people. I don’t think they would say it was Sacramental… the two Sacraments they recognize are Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, and they understand them quite differently from Catholics. So there isn’t much of a Sacramental sense of receiving Christ apart from those two instances.
People are getting much too theoretical about what this poor woman meant. She was advocating a daily devotional.